Chapter 165: Chronicle - Battle City Arc
[Amano Rei, an ordinary student at Domino High School in Domino City. Classmate of Yugi Mutou and Kaiba Seto.]
[After Duel Monsters began sweeping through the school, you started playing the game along with everyone else, occasionally crossing paths with Yugi and his friends.]
[One afternoon on your way home, you spotted Kaiba Seto forcibly dragging away Solomon Mutou and quietly decided to follow.]
[When Kaiba was about to tear apart the fourth Blue-Eyes White Dragon, you stepped in and stopped him in time. Yugi's group accepted you as a true friend, treating you as someone who had saved Yugi's grandfather.]
[Looking at the card he had nearly lost, Solomon seemed to find something in it, a bond he could feel but not fully name. He entrusted you with the fourth Blue-Eyes White Dragon, the one left behind by his dearest friend.]
[To rescue Solomon, sealed away by Pegasus, you joined Yugi Mutou and the others in competing at Duelist Kingdom.]
[Your performance at Duelist Kingdom was strong. You gathered enough Star Chips to enter the castle and defeated professional duelist Mai Valentine in the semi-finals. In the final round, however, you fell short against the Dark Game.]
[Following your impressive run at Duelist Kingdom and your skilled handling of the fourth Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Kaiba Seto, newly awakened to the Heart of the Cards, invited you to join Kaiba Corporation as a specially contracted duelist.]
[This weekend, you received your first assignment: report to Kaiba Corporation by 2 PM.]
[Chronicle Clear Condition: Earn Kaiba Seto's recognition.]
[Chronicle Hidden Reward Condition: ???]
Amano opened his eyes.
Spread out in front of him was the unmistakable sight of Domino City, a place he had watched on screen far more times than he could count. And directly ahead, just as recognizable, was Solomon Mutou's toy and card shop, the same one that had appeared in the anime so many times it practically felt like a landmark.
One of the main reasons anime-era Yugi had access to so many strong cards in the early going was exactly this: his grandfather ran a card shop.
The backstory introduction did raise a few questions, though.
It felt like it should conflict with the GX Chronicle from before. Last time, his cover identity was a student at Slifer Red Dormitory. Now he was apparently a regular Domino City high schooler. The two timelines were supposed to be about seven or eight years apart. He seemed to perpetually be cast as a student no matter where he landed.
There was also the detail about saving the fourth Blue-Eyes White Dragon. In the original anime, that card was famously torn in half by Kaiba. In this version of events, the Chronicle's backstory had him intervening in time to stop it.
Good call, Domino City version of himself.
Alongside him, having crossed over through the virtual network login point, were Rin Seiya and Kaiba Chiaki.
Rin Seiya hit the ground with barely contained excitement. "This is actually Domino City! Not New Domino City!"
New Domino City was the name from 5D's, set many years after the original series. Given that her deck had pulled in several of Jack Atlas's support cards through prior Chronicle runs, she had clearly spent a fair amount of time navigating the 5D's-era Chronicles already.
"But this is the first time I have ever seen a Chronicle with its own built-in backstory that lets you move around freely. kohai, your luck really is something else."
Two Chronicles in a row with detailed backstories and open exploration. At this point Amano was fairly certain it was not luck.
Rin Seiya had landed in the Chronicle buzzing with curiosity. Kaiba Chiaki's reaction was the opposite. Since the moment she had seen the name Kaiba Seto on the pre-entry screen, she had gone very still.
Now, reading through the full backstory text, the weight of what was about to happen settled over her.
This was the Kaiba Seto recorded in history three thousand years ago. The real one. And she was going to meet him in person within the hour.
Logically, she understood this was data inside Eva's virtual network. But the feeling it produced was something else entirely. Something close to the mysterious disorientation of traveling across time to meet your own ancestor.
Before anyone could say anything further, the door of Solomon's shop swung open, and four heads poked out.
"Amano! Since when were you standing out here? Come inside already."
Yugi Mutou blinked at him with a slightly puzzled expression.
Joey Wheeler caught sight of Rin Seiya and Kaiba Chiaki standing behind Amano, and his jaw nearly hit the pavement. Particularly Kaiba Chiaki's outfit.
"Whoa. I almost had a heart attack. I thought Kaiba turned into a girl. You're not actually a Kaiba fan, are you? The coat and everything."
"Amano, who are these two?" Tea Gardner asked, with considerably more tact.
This was complicated.
"Rin Seiya and Chiaki. They were upperclasswomen from my school back in middle school."
Same approach as the GX Chronicle: invent a plausible backstory on the spot. In introducing Kaiba Chiaki, Amano deliberately left out the surname. The last thing he needed was Kaiba Seto hearing that his contracted employee had shown up with someone sharing his family name. The GX-era Kaiba had already faded into historical legend by that point, but this Kaiba was very much still in the picture.
"Amano Rei!!"
Joey and Tristan Taylor reacted in unison, launching out of the doorway, each grabbing one of Amano's arms and pinning him between them in a synchronized headlock.
Tristan: "You have had cute upperclasswomen this whole time and you never said anything! TWO of them! You have betrayed every principle of the brotherhood of single guys everywhere!"
Joey: "I thought we were supposed to be regular-guy card game brothers! How could you hold out on us like this, Amano?! Introduce me right now! Introduce me to them this second!"
Watching all three of them tangled up together, Tea pressed her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing outright. "Joey, Tristan, you two are at such a disadvantage in terms of looks here. This is the kind of problem only handsome guys have to deal with."
Yugi smiled with warm sincerity from the doorway. "Since you are friends of Amano's, please come in. This is my grandfather's shop, we gather here all the time. You are welcome here anytime."
From behind the shop counter, Solomon Mutou clasped both hands behind his back and produced his signature three-part chuckle. "Ohoho! Having two lovely young ladies visiting regularly would surely be excellent for business."
The atmosphere was completely different from the tense GX Chronicle, where the Slifer Red Dormitory had been on the verge of demolition. This Chronicle had opened in a slice of ordinary life, and the interaction felt lighter for it. Rin Seiya's outgoing energy, which was about as far from Sakuya's reserved composure or Kaiba Chiaki's cool composure as it was possible to get, fit right in almost immediately.
The card shop itself made Amano a little nostalgic.
The pack-opening experience back in Eden, mediated entirely through the Eva Terminal's digital interface, had none of the texture of a real card shop. The physical weight of a sealed pack in your hands, the paper edge under your thumbnail, the act of pulling the cards out one by one: none of that came through on a screen.
He stood at the display case looking at the rows of booster packs and felt a very familiar itch.
Then a thought occurred to him: if he opened cards inside a Chronicle and managed to pull something good, could he bring them out?
In the DM and GX eras, cards like Pot of Greed and Graceful Charity had not yet become the near-mythical rarities they were in Eden. In this era, something genuinely powerful could still theoretically turn up in a random pack from a roadside shop.
He reached into his pocket on impulse.
Two steel coins. 200 yen. Exactly enough for one pack.
"Grandpa Solomon, one pack please." Amano slid the coins across the counter.
"Ohoho, thank you for your business." Solomon smiled and pushed the display toward him, letting him take his pick.
Rin Seiya leaned in with genuine curiosity. "They sell cards this way here? How interesting."
Amano closed his eyes, going quiet, reaching out for the subtle pull in the air that had guided his hand to the right card before. As if feeling his way through darkness toward a single thread of light.
That one.
His fingers closed on the pack, and he tore it open.
At the result, everyone crowded in to see what the legendary card-sensing ability had produced.
Yuyu. Yuyu. Yuyu. Yuyu. Yuyu.
Yugi Mutou stared at the five identical cards with genuine admiration. "That's incredible, Amano-kun. I have never seen anyone open a pack where every single card is the same one before."
One more word and you are getting reported to the Better Business Bureau for operating a suspicious establishment.
Amano felt personally singled out by the universe.
He knew from experience that the premium card in any pack was usually at the back, after the filler. He set the five Yuyu aside without looking at them and turned over the last card.
A trap card. Near the top of the card, he thought he could make out the words "Sacred" and "Mirror."
Had he actually pulled something good?
No Pot of Greed today, but something with a noble name sounded promising.
[Sacred Armor - Mirror Mail]
A little too noble, as it turned out.
He checked his pocket again. Empty. Even dropped into the Domino City timeline as a regular high school student, he was managing to be exactly as broke.
Tea glanced at the wall clock and asked: "Amano, you really did agree to the Kaiba Corporation arrangement?"
The others in the group had varying degrees of hesitation about Amano taking on work for Kaiba Seto, understandably enough. Kaiba's early reputation in this story had been that of a straightforward antagonist. Kidnapping Solomon, nearly destroying the fourth Blue-Eyes White Dragon, then later threatening to throw himself off a building during Duelist Kingdom to force Yugi to call off a duel. Those were the acts the anime had shown. The manga had been less restrained on that front.
But after taking a full Mind Crush penalty from Yami Yugi, Kaiba Seto had gradually become something more complex than a villain, and by the time Battle City rolled around, he was a different person from who he had been.
"Kaiba has changed," Amano said. "And the pay is actually decent."
The salary had not materialized yet, and today was technically his first day, but the principle stood.
At two o'clock, the entire group descended on Kaiba Corporation together.
Nobody in the group had any intention of staying home. The prevailing mood was general nosiness, collectively framed as looking out for Amano.
"Don't worry, Amano!" Joey rolled up his sleeve to display his bicep with cheerful aggression. "If Kaiba starts pulling anything, your regular-guy card game brother is right here. I will absolutely back you up."
Tristan looked at the bicep without enthusiasm. "Joey, what exactly would you contribute? Kaiba would just call you a hopeless amateur and walk away."
Beside them, Rin Seiya drifted close to Kaiba Chiaki and lowered her voice. "Sounds like the Kaiba in this world doesn't have the best reputation."
"Hmph." Kaiba Chiaki was entirely unbothered. "Strength has always stood alone. You Synchro users would not understand that."
"Synchro Summons gather the hopes of everyone around you into one. You Fusion type, go ahead and be alone forever."
The group arrived at the Kaiba Corporation tower with what could charitably be described as collective energy. Remarkably, the security at the entrance did not stop them, which suggested Kaiba had anticipated the crowd and arranged things accordingly.
The front desk staff greeted them with a professional smile. "President Kaiba is waiting for you on the roof, Amano-san."
Sixty floors. The elevator opened onto an unusually wide rooftop with a clear sky above it. Kaiba Seto was already there, standing into the wind with his white coat catching the air behind him in exactly the way it always did on screen.
"Hmph. You are here, Amano Rei. At least you are punctual."
"Kaiba, what is this test assignment you mentioned?"
"This."
Kaiba opened a silver metal case at his feet, reached inside, and threw the contents toward Amano in a single clean arc, like throwing a dart.
Amano caught it on reflex.
A Duel Disk.
Not the Eden-issue Duel Disk. Not the GX model. The classic DM-era design: the most iconic Duel Disk in the history of the game.
"The latest product from Kaiba Corporation. No more cumbersome duel arenas. With the Duel Disk, duelists can battle anywhere, at any time."
In truth, a prototype had already appeared back during Duelist Kingdom, but that early version required physically throwing the disk like a frisbee every time a monster was summoned, which had made it too impractical to use in real conditions. This was the refined version, developed before Battle City, and it was the design that had defined the era.
"Amano Rei. Your first assignment: push this Duel Disk to its absolute performance limits."
"How exactly am I supposed to test its limits?"
"Hmph. Obviously..."
Kaiba reached into a second metal case, pulled out another Duel Disk, and snapped it onto his own arm. The deck slid into place with a crisp mechanical click, and the wings of the most legendary Duel Disk design in Yu-Gi-Oh! history unfolded into their ready position.
"Duel me, Amano Rei. As the two foremost users of the ultimate monster, Blue-Eyes White Dragon, only a duel between us can truly test the outer limits of what monster cards can do."
Amano loaded his own deck and felt the Duel Disk lock into place around his arm.
So the Chronicle really was sending him to duel Kaiba Seto directly.
He had a distant memory, assembled across years of watching the series, that in the original story, Kaiba had tested the Duel Disk against an AI system and completely destroyed it. The card that had ended that test was one of the three Egyptian God Cards: Obelisk the Tormentor.
Which raised the relevant question.
Was this Kaiba Seto before he had acquired the Egyptian God Cards, or after?
The Chronicle's clear condition was not to defeat Kaiba Seto. It was to earn his recognition. How would he earn Kaiba Seto's recognition?
By winning.
The difficulty rating of A+ placed this about where the early Aster Phoenix Chronicle had been: a serious opponent, but one that was, with effort, within reach.
The answer to the God Cards question would make a meaningful difference, though.